There are a variety of games to play in casinos and other gaming environments. Blackjack or Twenty-One is one commonly known game which includes a player playing against a dealer. Typically, a player is dealt a single hand and competes against a dealer hand. The winning hand is the hand which has the highest value and does not exceed the value of twenty-one. Under certain Blackjack rules and for certain play conditions, the player is allowed to split their initial two-card hand into two separate hands. When a player splits their hand, they are playing two separate Blackjack hands against a single dealer hand.
Other casino card games, such as Pai Gow Poker, include player interaction and decision making elements where a player can set the cards in one or more player hands. In one common variation of Pai Gow poker, the player can form two poker hands out of seven dealt cards. The two hands must be formed into a five-card poker hand and a two-card poker hand, where the five-card hand must rank higher than the two-card hand. In order for a player to win a round of play in Pai Gow Poker, the players five card hand must rank higher than the dealers five card hand and the players two card hand must rank higher than the dealer's two card hand. If the player wins, a 5% commission or “vig” is deducted from the players winnings. For example, a player who placed a $10 wager and won, would receive $9.50 for their win award in addition to having their wager returned. This corresponds to a $10.00 win minus a 5% vig of $0.50, yielding a $9.50 total pay. Many players dislike this pay mechanism. Similarly, this discourages players from making off sized wagers, such as betting $12.00, because of the difficulty for the casino dealer to pay deal with the small change required to make the correct pays. In Pai Gow Poker, there are a high percentage of rounds of play that result in the player tying or pushing with the dealer. The high number of ties can be tedious for certain players. Conventional Pai Gow Poker uses a 53 card deck which including one joker card. Unlike the most poker games that define the joker to take on the value of any other card to optimize a hand, Pai Gow has certain rules that allow a joker to complete a flush or a straight, otherwise the joker is evaluated as an Ace. Another Pai Gow Poker variation relative to most poker games, is in the evaluation of the hand with the values A-2-3-4-5. In standard poker, a hand with 2-3-4-5-6 (of different suits) would be evaluated as ranking higher than the hand A-2-3-4-5 (of non-matching suits). In Pai Gow Poker, A-2-3-4-5 is considered the 2nd highest ranked straight, higher than 9-10-J-Q-K and just lower than the highest ranked straight, 10-J-Q-K-A. These rule differences from standard poker make Pai Gow Poker confusing for some players and therefore harder for novices to learn the game. However, some players enjoy the strategic and interactive aspects of Pai Gow Poker in being able to manipulate a set of dealt cards to form multiple player hands.
There is a need to increase the level of interest, excitement and intrigue associated with other types of card games such as in Blackjack games by allowing a player to set the cards in the initial player hands. There is also a need to provide improvements to, and interesting variations of, card-related games.